Get Your Piping Hot Feminist Cookies!

A feminist cookie is the term for the reward some men seem to be seeking for saying or doing something feminist. A man congratulating himself on very elementary good treatment of women (for example “I saw a pretty woman, and I didn’t yell at her or try and touch her!”) is especially likely to be ungently mocked for cookie seeking. Basic feminist behavior as essentially a matter of etiquette: it is not a cause for general congratulations and acclaim.

For example, a story I’ve shared previously comes to mind. I was taking my Sydney-based team to a dinner, and one of the male managers couldn’t join us. The director said, “Simon’s not coming tonight. He’s babysitting.” I thought that was a bit odd, so I said, “Whose kids is he babysitting?” wondering whom this 30-something man would babysit. His nieces & nephews? Neighbors’ kids? The director said, “No, his own kids.” I said, “Ah, I see. I would call that parenting, not babysitting.”

From the church’s new mormon.org Mormonism 101 listing on the Priesthood:

Far from being domineering men (as they may sometimes be stereotyped), Mormon men are compassionate changers of diapers, homework helpers, kitchen mates, and advocates of mom’s night out.

Thus said the Lord: “Okely-dokely”

First of all, who is stereotyping Mormon men as domineering? I thought the stereotype was that Mormons in general were like Ned Flanders, sans the stache, hardly a candidate for a Mad Men walk-on. So, this statement reads like “Hey, you know that way nobody thinks we are? We don’t think we are that way either!”

When is the husband’s night out? Oh yeah. Whenever he wants because he’s not shackled to the kids. A “night out” implies it is a special occasion, an unusual circumstance.

When women change diapers or help with homework or the kitchen, it’s expected. When they don’t do it, it’s neglect. When men don’t do it, it’s expected. When men do it, they want a fricken Dad of the Year medal. That’s what a feminist cookie is. Apparently those in charge of mormon.org, who are ostensibly the proselyting arm of the church, consider this their target audience. [1] Maybe they’re right.

As a younger, less excommunicated Kate Kelly put it, the church engages in romantic paternalism:

It is this same doublespeak that is used to simultaneously compliment and limit women in the church. . . . There is a cohesive and powerful message to women running throughout the church. You have a (wonderful, glorious) place, stay put! This message runs throughout the history (ahem, polygamy & the ERA) and modern role models provided for women.”

Praising your wife for “nurturing” is the polite way of saying “Make me a sammich!” The reverse equivalent is when a wife disingenuously compliments her husband’s handyman skills so he will do some sort of home repair or physical task for her. “You’re so good at this sort of thing. I’m all thumbs!” Or when an employer says you are “so detail-oriented” and then makes you do all the detailed work [2]. You can hear the assigned task before they even finish the sentence, like shave and a haircut . . . [3]. We praise what we want more of, and sometimes we do it so we can get out of doing it ourselves.

While we’re talking about mormon.org, they’ve posted a new quiz called What’s Your Mormon IQ? Go ahead and take it. I’ll wait.

You’ll be happy to know that I got “Advanced” in my knowledge of Mormonism. After 46+ years of it, I should hope so. Nevertheless, the “quiz” is not really a quiz but a proselyting tool. Clever. After each “quiz” question, it explains the correct answer in the most positive spin possible, then asks if your own beliefs are similar. The funny thing is, even if you answer “No” to every single question, the quiz will tell you that you have many beliefs in common with Mormons. Just as all roads lead to Rome, all quiz questions lead to the waters of baptism. In that vein, I’ve created my own snarkalicious version of this quiz:

Do Mormons believe in equality of the sexes?

YES – You’re right! Mormons consider men & women equal before God. Wow, you have a lot in common with us. Would you like to know more?

DEPENDS – You’re right! Mormons see both men & women as equal, but performing different roles. See, you are practically Mormon already. Shall we send the missionaries over?

NO – You’re right! Men & women have different roles, and men “preside.” Do you prefer your baptismal water to be tepid or lukewarm?

Do Mormons believe in the Bible?

YES – You’re right! The Bible is very important to Mormons, and we study it regularly. Like it says in the Bible, we must all be baptized. Are you ready to schedule that yet?

DEPENDS – Right you are! We believe in the Bible, but only so far as it is translated correctly. Gee, you’re smart. I bet you’d enjoy talking about your great ideas with the missionaries.

NO – Right again! While we do see the Bible as important, we also believe it has errors in it, and that there are other books of scripture that are important. We also believe that the words of living prophets trump the scriptures because they are for our time. You really get us. Ready to join?

I could go on, but you get the idea. Now it’s your turn.

What quiz questions can you create?

What do the explanations on mormon.org say about us as a people and how we view men & women both inside and outside of the church?

Does it matter? Are we as a church aiming for the cookie-seeking target audience anyway?

Discuss.

[1] Might I also suggest judgmental busybodies who like to tattle on others?

[2] “Oh, I’m no good at that stuff. I’m much more of a strategy, big-picture [4] person.”

[3] two bits.

[4] e.g. daydreaming and delegating

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Published by hawkgrrrl

Hawkgrrrl has been blogging since March 2008, publishing hundreds of opinion pieces. She is a wife and mother of three, a business executive, a returned missionary, and is active in her LDS ward. She likes oil painting, reading, theater, and international travel.
View all posts by hawkgrrrl

11 thoughts on “Get Your Piping Hot Feminist Cookies!”

Hawkgrrrl – what a classic..!!! I go onto mormon.org and it looks like they share your interest about cookies…!!! See below for the text…!!!

“We use cookies and third parties to provide you with the best experience on our website and show custom content based on your interests, as described in our Privacy Policy. You can change your cookie settings at any time. By continuing to use the site you agree to our use of cookies. To set your cookie preferences, please use our Cookie Consent Tool”

Also advanced.
I don’t know if this is a temporary quirk of the site, but when asked “Curious about what other beliefs you might share? Yes No Thanks”
The latter option doesn’t appear to be working, or at least doesn’t move me off the page. Only choosing “yes” takes me somewhere else. Kind of irritating I thought. A nice “Thank you for participating in our quiz. See you again soon” would be better than no response to “No Thanks”.

YES – when the prophets speaks, the thinking’s been done! If you follow the prophet, follow the prophet, follow the prophet you won’t go astray because he’s not capable of leading you astray!
DEPENDS – sometimes prophets just give inspired opinions and sometimes they speak as men, so when they speak as men, they’re not being prophets, even though they’re still typing on corporate letterhead, so to speak so… yeah
NO – come on guys, prophets hear from God the same way you do, and sometimes that method of communication is a bit… dodgy, so when all those prophets proclaimed blacks priesthood/temple ban doctrinal, they were just influenced by their time!

Do Mormon’s believe in polygamy?
YES – sealings are the only ‘marriages’ that matter anyway, and you can have twenty women to every man on that one, so, yes!
DEPENDS – like the quiz said, we just don’t know the reasons for why polygamy was practiced in biblical times/the 1800s’ (REALLY?!) and we disavow it violently today and don’t want to be considered to be anything like FLDS (stop thinking about Warren Jeffs!!) but since we do it in the temple, erm… next question. I mean, we did practice it and it was holy then (think of the widows*, populating the valley* (don’t look at the footnotes!), but like the quiz says, now its totally not holy at all. So yes/no.
NO – We’re not weird guys. Come on.

Is Mormon Doctrine unchanging?
YES – God is eternal, his laws are unchanging, as are his standards, even as ‘the world’s standards drop off to hades
DEPENDS – doctrine means something sanctioned to be taught at the time, so sometimes its doctrine black people can’t have the priesthood, and sometimes that’s totally not.
NO – define ‘doctrine’

This post reminded me of the #itwasmom snarks after this site was launched. Even the hashtag differences between that site and this one implicate the church in their romantic paternalism/chicken patriarchy (or I’m just projecting decades of benevolently sexist material onto simple hashtags; I just think ‘it was mum’ implies she did something for you, more than ‘a dad’s love’).

I think mormon.org (websites listed above), CES manuals, YW/YM manuals etc say that the church is a strict patriarchy where women’s place is indeed in the home, and prophets believe that, and the institutional church supports it. However, this is unpopular in ‘the world’, and with some church members, so they feel like they can easily placate them by using different words, or pedestals. This works for a surprising number of people. I think it matters, because we talk big about equality, but do a lot of doublespeak. I think this leads to a lot more infighting than necessary, for one thing.

I think we are a cookie-seeking target audience. I think if you extrapolate that line of thought, that’s how you get a systemic situation that permits a bishop to have tortured people in his line of work, but a woman with a website excommunicated, also. I think this relates to why sometimes we have people who are Good Mormon’s but not necessarily Good People.

Apologies if there’s incoherence here. I’d proofread, but small children.

NO – You’re right! The other women you’re married to for time and all eternity don’t count.

IT DEPENDS – Correct! While Mormons aren’t allowed to be married to more than one woman at a time on earth, they may be sealed to several women for eternity. Why should a man have to choose which of his beloved wives he will spend eternity with? Of course, women are not allowed to be sealed to more than one man for eternity, so in that case, Mormons definitely DO NOT practice polygamy. That would just be slutty!

YES – Wow, you’re really getting technical. Would you like to talk to some representatives of the church who can explain to you what the fine print doesn’t mean?

Question. Do you believe only members of the LDS church will go to heaven?
Answer: YES!! – you’re right!! Member of the LDS Church are the only ones who have the authority of God to perform saving ordinances like baptism – whilst on the subject, click on the chapel locator button to the right – they all have fonts.
Answer: DEPENDS!!! – you’re right!!! Only God can judge the thoughts and intents of your heart. If you would otherwise have accepted the Gospel, if you had the choice in this life and had been baptised, you would go to heaven. On the subject of baptism….
Answer: NO!!! – you’re right!!! There are good people in all religions, just like you. The missionaries are on their way….

I love this post, Angela! And these alternative quiz questions in the comments are excellent. What’s sad to me is that I recall as a missionary, I totally did this with people’s answers to questions. Or just their statements in general. Whatever they said, I could relate to Mormon beliefs somehow, with a little carefully selected twisting.

Ziff – we had a great skit at a mission conference in which two elders were like used car salesman, able to spin anything into “getting you into the water today.” Here’s a small sample:

INVESTIGATOR: I’m not so sure about this tithing requirement to get baptized.
ELDER: That’s OK. We have a Terrestrial Kingdom package that also comes with baptism . . .
INVESTIGATOR: Well, I really like sleeping with my girlfriend. I won’t have to give that up, will I?
ELDER: No problem. We can put you in our Telestial package. That also comes with baptism!

I guess that I have a different view of “night out” than the OP presents. When we had our last baby, I had two nights a week when I left immediately after 6 p.m. supper (sometimes before) and my husband was in charge for the rest of the night. I came home about 10 when the littles were to bed. I thought of those as my “nights out” even though they weren’t that unusual or rare. They “out” because they were away from home, which was my usual workplace.

I sometimes went to a movie or to visit friends, but more often went to the academic library (in the old days when journals were in print and web of science was a book called Science Citation Index, PubMed was Index Medicus).

When women say that they couldn’t be a mom 24/7, I can understand. That’s how I felt. So that’s how we accommodated my need to do Something Else, without having the pressures of a second fulltime job during that season.

And my “nights out” paved the way for my later re-entry into the workforce. I had recently written papers, I taught my new department how to use citation software, which nobody else was using in 1998.

I don’t agree that Mormon men get a pass just because they have a penis. Some couples may decide to do things that way; I wouldn’t presume to tell others how to run their partnership. In my house, if we were both home, we were just as likely to change a diaper or kiss an owie or whatever. And I never made a sammich for my husband, he can do that himself.

Sometimes praising someone for nurturing is just praising someone for nurturing–something that is not generally praised 364 days a year in our society.